Counsel calls governor's budget cuts illegal

Budget

Matthew Yi, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published
4:00 am PDT, Thursday, August 6, 2009

The state legislative counsel on Wednesday concluded that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger exceeded his authority when he cut hundreds of millions of dollars from state health and welfare programs before signing a package of bills to solve the state's huge deficit.

Schwarzenegger made the spending reductions last week by line-item veto, which allows a governor to reduce or eliminate "items of appropriation" without rejecting an entire bill.

But questions arose over whether he could legally make deeper cuts with that line-item veto.

Schwarzenegger's officials have said the governor's actions were well within legal bounds. But the legislative counsel, a team of attorneys who advise state lawmakers, wrote in a four-page letter to Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Baldwin Vista (Los Angeles County), that the governor did "exceed his 'line-item' veto authority."

Assemblyman John A. Pérez, D-Los Angeles, chairman of the Assembly Democratic Caucus, said that while there are no plans by lawmakers for legal action, they may file briefs if groups affected by the cuts file lawsuits.